


To Build a Home

by dragon_zena



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Moving In Together, Multi, Team as Family, background daisira and melanie/georgie, i wish i could say everyone lives/nobody dies but uh. sasha, sasha and danny specifically, tim stoker lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22149091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragon_zena/pseuds/dragon_zena
Summary: "'Move in with me?'Martin chokes and starts to cough; Tim pushes the long forgotten cup of tea towards him apologetically, leans over the table to pat his back a few times while waiting for him to catch his breath."Tim Stoker has lived in an empty house for at least five years. After everything is said and done, he builds a home.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims/Tim Stoker, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 51
Kudos: 441





	To Build a Home

**Author's Note:**

> Me and [Mags](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolios) (who has some _incredible_ fics that you should totally check out, btw) were discussing my headcanon about Tim living in his family's home, and then she mentioned Tim inviting Martin and Jon to live with him post-series, and...well. I wanted to write a story where Tim lives and makes a home for himself, so I did and it ended up being a little longer than usual--like...7k longer than usual...at least 8k of headcanons (a lot of inspiration from Mags on that front, too)...I hope it's in character, but it *may* have gotten away from me, a little?
> 
> I enjoyed writing it, though (very self-indulgent...), so I hope you enjoy!

The Stoker residence was made to house a family of at least four people, but it currently only houses one, and it's been that way for at least five years. There is no one there but Timothy Stoker and the ghosts of his past, of when happiness was not so fleeting, not a prequel to inexplicable horror or isolation or dread. The specters breathe loneliness into every corner, every hallway, every open door. Cools the floor that the last surviving member of the Stoker family walks on, coalesces on the bathroom mirror on days where he expects a second, younger voice outside of the room, a warm laugh telling him to hurry up. 

And the teasing retort about his brother's model-like appearance chokes him, because there is no Danny. There is no pulling his little brother down and messing up his dark, curly hair. Or hip-checking him playfully when he stands in the middle of the hallway as he reads. 

And for much longer, there has been no bending down to accept the gentle kiss of his mother. And there have been no hard claps on the shoulder from his father. And this has been the way for way longer than five years, but for some reason it is easier to accept a car crash than it is to watch a monster skin the person that you care about most.

It was easier to deal with when it felt as though there was something driving him, when memories of his brother only served to feed the need for closure and vengeance. But it's been two years since then, and there's been...an emptiness within him. He's been so upset for so long, so resentful, and now there's nothing. There is no more Magnus Institute. They are free, and they haven't been in danger for a long time, and everything is over.

There’s still something lodged into Tim’s heart. He knows that it’s something he has to stop avoiding.

He stands in front of Danny's bedroom door for some time, one trembling hand on the cold doorknob and the other tracing the delicately carved letters towards the top of the entrance so as to calm himself down. He has to do this. Danny has been gone since 2013, and Tim had gotten rid of the monster wearing his skin in 2017, and he has never gone into this room since, and he knows that he has to, but.

He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. It’s just like ripping a band-aid off, he tells himself, twisting the knob and pushing it open before he has the chance to change his mind, again.

It looks— 

It looks like how it did before that day in August, so long ago. Framed photos and certificates rest on the wall, and the long blue curtains are closed in front of a small window across from him, not that they’re stopping the sunlight too well. The overhead light isn’t on, but it’s bright enough to see everything, from the small battery-operated camera on Danny’s bedside table to the assortment of papers sticking out from his bottom drawer.

"This," he breathes out, eyes and hands running along walls painted a slate grey and dressers and bookshelves covered in dust, reverent and nostalgic. "This isn't so bad...Hi, Danny. Or...what’s left of him, I suppose."

And of course, it's not the multitude of Danny's awards that does it, nor is it the old pictures—pictures that still make pride and joy swell within him, silly ones that make him laugh and bittersweet ones that pull a grim smile from him.

No, it's a paper airplane; he and Danny would write messages into paper planes and throw them at each other, and he had kept some, but he didn’t know that Danny had kept some, as well. So Tim steps on a paper airplane, and he picks it up and unfurls it, and it says _“thats fine,”_ and nothing else, but suddenly his vision is blurry, and he's gritting his teeth because the grief is boiling in his gut and bubbling up in his throat and searing him from the inside out, and it wasn't—he was better, he _swears_ that he was doing better, but now he feels _worse_ and it feels—feels like the pain of it is going to crush him and suddenly he wants to _leave_ , he wants to leave again but it feels like abandonment so his body won't listen to him. His body won't listen to him just like then, just like in that opera house, just— 

He sobs, body wracking almost violently, and he feels so _angry,_ all over again, clenching his fists at his side, fingernails pressing into his scarred, calloused palms.

“I hate this,” he spits out, breath hitching. “I _hate_ this! I’m here in your room because I thought it would help or something, but it’s just the same as it was when you first died! And it’s not f-fair. What the fuck is the point? It’s just a fucked-up reminder that I survived and you—and you _didn’t._ And then I got wrapped up in game of—of fear politics, of all things, trying to get you back, and everyone kept _dying,_ and I’m so fucking tired!”

He hiccups, fists his hands in his shirt, “And I don’t think that I’m supposed to b-be here, Danny, and I didn’t—I didn’t w-want to be here for so _fucking long,_ but I was still _stuck_ , and I’m so fucking mad, Danny, I was so fucking _mad_ all the time, at myself and other people and sometimes I got so fucking _angry_ at you, and I—” His voice cracks. “And I don’t…I don’t want to be upset with you. So I’m...I’m here.”

He pauses, his breath stuttering with the acknowledgement of his words.

“I-I’m here,” he whispers. “I’m _here,_ Danny,” he laughs, and it’s a little manic, even to his own ears, but it’s the truth. It’s the truth, and he’s grinning, even though it feels painful and his chest is constricted and his nose is running. It’s an ugly cry, but god he needs it. He’s needed it for a long time.

He spends the next few minutes weeping, grieving, letting it drain out of him from his eyes and through his pores, out of his skin and through his hands, and with each tremble of his bones, he starts to feel lighter and lighter.

“I have two boyfriends,” Tim starts, flopping down onto Danny’s bed and lying down against his pillow. It’s flat, mainly because Danny had an uncanny habit of pressing his face against pillows as hard as possible, squeezing the plushness right out of them. “It took forever for us to get our shit together. We were so...I don’t know. They know that I’m doing this, I mean, I told them that I was because I didn’t want to...to back out.

“I’m...I think I’m happy, Danny. I still—I still miss you, and I won’t stop, ever, but I’m...here. In a way that I haven’t been for—for years. So I guess that this helped. Even if you aren’t actually here. It helped.”

He pulls his phone out, sees that he’s gotten a few texts from Martin, ranging from pictures of things that remind him of Tim to a simple “How are you?” He has a single text from Jon that says, “Let me know if you need anything.” He grins, a stray tear rolling down his temple, texts them that it’s fine and asks them if they want to go to dinner tomorrow.

And for what could have been minutes or hours, Tim talks. He talks about everything that has happened since that night in August, about applying to the Magnus Institute, starting in research and being asked to move into the Archives. He talks about everything that happens subsequently, about the worms and mannequins and the...about the thing that wasn't Sasha.

He talks about realizing that Sasha had been dead for a while before anyone realized it, how much it had felt like a horrible rerun of losing Danny, knowing that a creature was out there wearing the faces of people he's loved and lost. He mentions how Jon had the tapes of Sasha's voice—the actual Sasha's voice—and had let Martin and Tim listen to one of the earlier ones, how he'd felt even more devastated than he’d been after realizing that Melanie couldn't tell him what Sasha had even looked like.

He talks about how hard it was to let anyone else back in even after the Unknowing. Realizing that he wasn't dead and that there was so much that would come after, so much that he didn't feel ready for. Slowly trying to reach out to Martin, lamenting with Melanie and occasionally arguing with her with the hope of burning themselves out. Watching Basira disappear for days upon weeks and then bonding with Daisy. Rekindling his relationship with Jon.

And then there was the end, among everything else, and he'd latched onto it, pulled himself out of the wreckage with burned and bleeding hands.

He starts to drift somewhere around discussing how he goes to Daisy and Basira’s apartment, or maybe around the point where he talks about randomly popping up at Georgie’s flat to play around with The Admiral and banter with Melanie. The last thing he remembers is mumbling about how he wants a home, too, how this is the only room in the house that feels like a homecoming.

Timothy Stoker curls up and falls asleep on Daniel Stoker's bed, and it's the most restful sleep that he's gotten in a very long time.

_________________________

He goes to Martin first, mainly because he's easier to find, usually sitting out on the patio of his favorite café, hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail, glasses slowly slipping down his face, an untouched cup of tea sitting a little ways away from his work. Tim knows that he will sit there and write draft after draft of poetry, some short and simple, others chock full of imagery and figurative language, lengthy and convoluted. 

As corny as it sounds, there's something in Martin's writing that he doesn't tend to see at his publishing firm. It ignites something in his chest; it's not new, and it hasn't been for a while, but these are the moments that he latches onto, now. These are the moments that keep him going—these are the moments that have replaced the vehemence within him.

He makes sure to gently knock on the table before sitting down across from Martin, grins toothily when his head snaps up and his face softens.

"Hello, Tim,” he greets, smiling and setting his pen down. “How are you?”

Normally, Tim would say something along the lines of “Better, now that I’m talking to you,” and Martin would either hide a flushed smile behind his fist or flirt right back. The latter never ceases to fluster Tim and usually ends with the two of them blushing and grinning at each other like teenagers, and it’s—it’s nice. Tim likes it. 

But Tim is feeling calm, calmer than he’s been in a long time, emotions sated like the ocean after a thunderstorm, and he’s suddenly filled with so much love and gratitude that it overwhelms him. He gently places a hand on top of Martin’s, stares into his eyes, and responds with a soft, “I’m doing...good, Martin. Better than I have been in a while.”

“Oh,” Martin blinks, and then he's properly beaming at him. "I'm glad, Tim."

“Yeah,” he exhales softly, thumb absentminded running against the soft skin of Martin’s wrist. “Yeah, and I wanted to...ask you something.”

“Mhm?”

“Move in with me?”

Martin chokes and starts to cough; Tim pushes the long-forgotten cup of tea towards him apologetically, leans over the table to pat his back a few times while waiting for him to catch his breath.

When he regains a semblance of calm, eyes not as frantic, Martin clears his throat, scratching the light stubble on his cheek and smiling sheepishly, “Iiii don’t know if I was expecting that or not, honestly, uh. What brought that up?”

Tim sits back, face burning, “Well, I just—” He takes a second to pause, squeezing his boyfriend’s hand. “You know that I went into Danny’s room a few days ago. And it was—it was hard at first, but after that I read your texts. You and Jon, that is, ah, obviously. I just think that even after deciding to...to let go, I’m still in the house, by myself? 

And yeah, we’re all big kids here, but I figured that maybe you and Jon would want to? I know that you’ve been living in your—in the apartment you grew up in. And I figured, since the lease is almost up, and since Jon barely lives at his own place, anyway, it’d be easier to just...be roommates. Yeah.” Tim finishes, watching the sun peak hesitantly through grey clouds. Even with his nerves, his grip on Martin’s hand never falters. 

The two of them are quiet for a little while before Martin turns his hand over and grabs Tim’s, brings his knuckles to his lips and kisses them fondly, “I think that I’d like to move in with you a lot, Tim.”

“That’s—” Tim gives a flustered laugh. “I’m glad. Um, I can come over and help you pack? On the last week of your lease, yeah?”

“That works,” Martin nods. “Have you asked Jon, yet?”

“Going to see him after this. Which means that I guess I should get going.” Tim squeezes Martin’s hand once, twice, three times, and Martin squeezes back four before letting go and standing. “But, ah, I can probably convince him to come over for dinner tonight, if you don’t have plans.”

“Sounds fun.” Martin cradles his face and runs his thumb lovingly against Tim’s pockmarked cheek, eyes twinkling, “I’ll see you both later, then.”

_________________________

Tim thinks that he used to hate Jonathan Sims.

In hindsight, it’s difficult to tell whether he actually did or whether he was just lashing out at someone that was an easy choice, someone that had tethered them so succinctly to the Archives, into attacks by worms and creatures with swirling eyes and long fingers. He’s known that it was never Jon’s intention, in the first place, that he had been just as trapped as anyone else, but for the longest time, Tim just...couldn’t handle their collective helplessness, couldn’t fathom the way that Jon seemed to play into it, and not even wholeheartedly, not even like Gertrude, who would do what she had to do, everyone else be damned. Tim figured that if Jon were to give in to the shithole that they were trapped in, he might have well just put Tim and everyone else out of their misery in a way that mattered.

He’d thought that the “way that mattered” was blowing an apocalyptic ritual to hell and taking himself with it, but obviously that hadn’t been the case, and it had left him with an overwhelming amount of time to reflect.

He had been on bed rest for weeks for burns and broken bones, but he was awake and alive, which is more than he could have said for Jon, who had brain activity and nothing else. Looking back, he doesn’t really know if he’s grateful to have been placed in a room with him; as much as he loves him, he was...dead. His heart wasn’t beating on its own. Tim doesn’t even think that he was breathing. He had tried to avoid looking towards him, didn’t know which emotion he was supposed to be feeling and avoided the experience altogether.

Of course, there were multiple visits from Georgie, who had seemed both agitated and disquieted, who would sit for a while at Jon’s bedside and then go for a walk, who would scold Jon for how little he actually told her. Who would eventually talk with Tim and scold him for his decisions, as well. Tim appreciated how blunt she was, quick-witted and protective, even though it was clear that she was tired of being in positions like this—whatever “this” meant, to her. He appreciated that she had the common sense to be present but not involved, as much as she seemed to hate it.

There were also some visits from Basira, who said little and left fairly quickly, seemingly seamless disposition blemished by small fractures of unease. She would sit in the corner of the room and read. Tim would let her. Occasionally, she would ask if he needed anything, and he would give a sardonic reply, and she would make a dry joke that actually made him chuckle a little. There was an unspoken understanding, at least on her end. Tim wished that he’d felt as calm as she seemed, even with Daisy gone. Once, he asked about her, and Basira had clammed up, looking away with narrowed eyes and shrugging; she had left the room shortly after. Tim didn’t ask, again.

Melanie never came.

Unsurprisingly, Martin visited the most, usually sitting in between both of their hospital beds. Tim would wake up to his soft, tinny voice—sometimes, he was reading statements to Jon. Sometimes, he would just talk about what’s happening in their absence. Sometimes, Tim would hear the Martin from a couple of years ago; he would lean back in his chair, laugh quietly and mention how he’d seen a dog outside and it reminded him about when Jon had first been promoted, or how one of the other employees in another department was getting married, how sweet it was. Then a breeze would blow through, and he’d sigh quietly, and it would be over. 

Sometimes, Tim would wake up to Martin’s large hands running through his greasy hair, and he’d slowly untangle himself from the final vestiges of whatever nightmare he’d been having. He would speak to Martin more than he would with anyone else, but sometimes he would just lie there, eyes unfocused, mind blank. Other times, he’d get vicious, snapping at Martin, at his situation, and sometimes, Martin would argue right back. On the last day that Martin visited, pleading with Jon to wake up before being called away by Peter Lukas—a recurring argument between the two of them—Tim had been silent, turning away and pretending to be asleep. Martin had kissed his forehead before leaving. His lips were cold.

Tim had gotten out of the hospital months before Jon had woken up, and by then, his ire had been burned out—it had probably done so even before leaving the hospital, if he’s honest. There was actually a flicker of relief somewhere in him, a fragment of something in his hollow husk of a body. He was around more, and Jon had, ironically, become more of a person than he’d ever been before their lives were so thoroughly disrupted.

And after he’d saved Daisy, Tim had actually...started to like him, again. Or maybe he’d finally started to acknowledge it. Even after having watched him rip a statement out of that Breekon guy’s head (he had deserved it, Tim thinks, especially for delivering that damned table to the Institute, for all of the terror and pain that he and his partner had caused), Tim had been hovering in his general vicinity, not always purposefully. When your reckless boss gets stabbed in a botched surgery and then gets two entire ribs removed, it’s kind of difficult to leave him alone without being worried that he’s going to get both himself and everyone else killed. And he’d been...worried, somewhere deep down.

Whenever they were alone, they’d talk about Jon’s dwindling humanity, and, even more often, they’d talk about Martin, how much he’d isolated himself. Jon said that they just had to trust him, but the two of them both know that trust isn’t equivalent to a lack of worry. But so much had started to happen, and Jon and Basira had left to Ny-Ålesund, leaving him and Daisy behind. Tim had gotten more chances to track Martin down, then, with Daisy’s help, but it was as useless as it was when he’d still been in the hospital.

Things continued to happen. Everyone continued to struggle. Jon had gotten an official complaint from a random victim. They had all gone to Hill Top Road, despite the divisive nature of that entire discussion. Melanie had decided to join him in doing jack shit for the Institute, a while after starting therapy. By the time that Jon figured out how to quit, Tim had decided that he would stay. Had thought about Jon losing himself in the Archives, eyes wild and hungry, about Martin losing himself in Elias’s—Peter’s?—office, blanketed in nothingness, and he decides to stay. To wait. And that had been for the best, even in hindsight, because a week or so later, all hell broke loose, and Tim had been there to witness it.

In the aftermath of everything, there was so much to discuss, but the first thing that Tim had done was bend down and kiss Jon, a small peck on the lips, and then Martin, who grabbed on to the back of his shirt for dear life. And they’d sat there and held onto each other, afraid to let go.

It’s safe to say that he no longer hates Jonathan Sims. Even safer to say that he loves him.

By the time that Tim is done reminiscing about his hellish life, he’s walking through the doors of the school where Jon teaches—two English literature courses and a single Composition & Language class. He gets his visitor pass and heads off to find his boyfriend.

One thing that Tim appreciates about Jon is that he’s very predictable, even now; it makes it easier to find him during his lunch hour—hiding out in his classroom with a few of the students that prefer to eat in the quiet of his presence versus the loud clamor of a high school cafeteria. He can hear his voice, low and soothing, as he converses with one of his students—something about causality and the multiverse theory.

His partner’s voice pauses, and then he hears it a little louder through the door before he even knocks, and it’s fond, “You can come in, Tim.”

He opens the door and knocks on the door frame, anyway, leaning against it with one of his hands in his bomber jacket and the other waving lazily at Jon and about five of his students. One of them—Mya, if he’s remembering correctly—is braiding his hair. It’s much longer than it had ever been in the past, stopping around his shoulder blades. Sometimes, he’ll fall asleep with his head against Tim’s shoulder and his back pressed against Martin’s side, and his hair is softer and better taken care of, now. So much so that Tim can’t blame Mya for wanting to get her hands in it. He marvels at how calm he looks, thinks about how long it takes for Jon to relax under other people’s hands, to trust that they won’t hurt him.

“Getting your hair done, boss?”

“Mmm,” Jon hums. “We’re almost done and my planning period is next period, if you don’t mind waiting.”

He thinks that Jon already knows what he wants to ask. The man watches him with bright and curious eyes, still inquisitive and hungry for knowledge even after the Eye's influence on him had been diminished into almost nothing. It had been there for so long that even though Jon doesn't show up as a shadow in other people's dreams, anymore, ingesting their traumas, he can still Know small things (like the fact that Tim was coming to visit him during lunch), and he does still have the power of compulsion—although it's more like a power of suggestion, now.

Even still, he waits until the lunch hour ends, and then he has Jon’s full attention, and it’s...it’s grounding. A few years ago, it might have felt unnerving or irritating, but now it’s more of a weighted blanket, and he relaxes marginally.

It’s Jon who speaks first, brushing the end of his braid with his thumb, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Tim replies slowly, making sure that he still means it. He makes his way towards Jon’s desk and perches on the edge of it, ignoring Jon’s half-hearted swat at his legs. “One moment I was pulling a Charlie St. Cloud, I guess, yelling and crying and the works, you know, and the next moment I was falling asleep in his bed after texting you and Martin that I was fine, so. However you would expect someone to feel after that. It was very...cathartic.”

“I can imagine,” Jon replies, and he’s not looking directly at Tim, anymore, instead moving two classes’ worth of book reports around absently, but Tim knows that he’s listening intently. His right hand, worn and scarred, rests patiently on Tim’s thigh.

“I’m sure that you can tell, anyway. That it was one of the last things I needed to do before I actually start to heal instead of, I don’t know, putting a patch on it and saying it’s fine. I still feel...fucked up, but talking to him, or acting like I was talking to him—it honestly did help. Even if he wasn’t actually there.”

Jon says nothing, squeezing his thigh encouragingly, but that’s all that Tim wanted to say, so he moves on.

“I kinda want you and Martin to move in with me. But you knew that.”

“I did,” Jon confirms, eyes back on him. “And you mean it? It’s...ah, it’s quite a big, ah, step in...relationships. Let alone one with as much—hm. With as much history.” 

Tim raises his eyebrows, “You already crash at my place more than in your own flat.”

Jon purses his lips, averting his eyes. Tim waits patiently, making sure that Jon sees him as he takes the other’s hand with both of his own and simply holds it.

After what feels like five minutes but is probably closer to one, Jon nods to himself, and then to Tim. “I’m definitely willing to try.”

“Great!” Tim grins, “Can I kiss you?”

Jon nods, mumbling a quiet “sure.” Tim very gently takes his face into his hands and leans in against his forehead, stares into his brown eyes before closing the gap.

Pulling away, he gently pats Jon’s cheek, “Me and Martin are having dinner at mine, tonight. Come over after you finish up, here?”

Jon is gently touching his lips as though it’s their first kiss, smiling dopily to himself, small and genuine. “Of course.”

_________________________

A few weeks later, Martin walks into the Stoker house, and the first thing that he says, unbidden, is "It's Lonely." Tim can see the fog seeping out from between his teeth, but it doesn't linger. Martin splutters before taking a deep breath, pulling Tim into a hug. Tim lets him, melting into his side.

"Yeah," he sighs into Martin's green jumper, huffs a laugh that sounds a little bitter. "It's a little lonely."

They make quick work of moving Martin's boxes into the guest room that he's chosen to be his own. From there, he sort of hovers as Martin begins to take things out, clothes and writing journals and mugs. Tim had known that he owned a lot of jumpers, but he hadn't realized the sheer size of his collection, from jumpers with normal colors to goofy holiday prints. Something wells up in his chest when he runs his fingers against the soft wool of a particularly tacky one, and he chuckles to himself.

“Quite the collection, here,” he teases, sitting on the bed, and Martin laughs, a bell-like noise.

“They’re comfortable. I have some that I can’t fit, anymore, but I can’t seem to get rid of them, I guess.”

“Oh?” Tim watches his boyfriend start to fold and hang his clothes. “Boyfriend shirt?”

A sweater hits his face immediately after, and he grins, slipping it on. It’s still huge on him, but despite the fact that Martin probably hasn’t worn it in years, it still smells like him. “Wanna ditch this for later and cuddle?”

Martin snorts, but he's already wrapping his arms around Tim's lower back, slowly rocking them back and forth. "Throwing in the towel, already? You aren't even the one unpacking."

"Ah, but you have so much time to move in," Tim hums, a hand resting upon the nape of Martin's neck, the hair there shaved and soft. "A few hours can't hurt."

"Help me put these clothes up and take my dishware to the kitchen, and maybe I'll consider it."

Tim grins, pecking him quickly on the lips before moving to bring a box of incomplete dish sets and silverware to the kitchen. "Be back soon, then."

After this, they move quite efficiently, Tim hanging clothes and Martin folding them and putting them in the dresser that sits in the corner of the room. It’s reminiscent of working in research, gently touching Martin’s back to let him know that he’s in his general vicinity, the easy conversation that drifts back and forth between the two of them.

Martin is in the middle of talking about how he’d wanted a pet for a while when his words suddenly slow down and pause. When Tim turns to check on him, his back is to Tim, and he has his hands in a smaller box, but they aren’t really moving, “Martin?”

When there’s no response, he walks over slowly, gently touches his shoulder, “Martin?”

He jumps, but he doesn’t turn around. “A-ah, sorry,” he sniffs, shoulders curling. “I just...a box of my mom’s stuff. Some things that she made for me. Before everything. Some stuff we made together. Ah, ha, lots of baggage here, a-actually, heh. Thought I was over it.”

“Martin,” Tim breathes out, walking around and kneeling in front of him. Martin turns his head to the side, averts his glassy eyes. Tim gently grabs his hand, rubs circles against his soft palm. “You don’t have to be ‘over it,’ Martin.”

Martin scoffs, and Tim uses his other hand to gingerly turn his head so that they’re staring into each other’s eyes, “No, listen to me, Martin. You have all of the time in the world to work through this. There’s no...there’s no deadline to coping; _you_ taught me that. You taught Jon that. You don’t have to—to hold yourself to impossible standards under the guise of, of being stronger or...more put together. You don’t have to...go through things on your own.

“If you don’t want to talk about this, it’s okay. But I’m here for you. Jon is here for you. And if you want me to drop it, that’s fine, too, but...I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”

For a few minutes, the two of them are silent. Tim slowly lets his hand slip into Martin’s free one, squeezes it three times. “Okay?”

Martin nods, pressing his forehead against Tim’s. He squeezes back four times, exhales, “Okay.”

A second later, “I think I’d like to finally take you up on that offer to cuddle, now.”

Tim smiles, feeling tender, “Who am I to say no?” 

A few hours later, around eight, Jon will knock on the door, fresh from work, and Tim will open it, and the three of them will spend a few hours going through his boxes to find Jon's toothbrush and body wash, trying to force him to let the rest of his belongings sit before he passes out, and eating unhealthy takeout food. They're all taking the day off tomorrow, anyway, so Tim doesn't see a reason to be worried about getting everything done in one sitting.

And even if they don’t finish, tomorrow? They have all of the time in the world.

_________________________

The first twenty-four hours of Tim living with his two boyfriends go something like this:

On the first night, the three of them sleep in separate beds. It's not anything that they aren't used to, but Tim does feel a little weird knowing that there are two other people living in his home, that those two people are dating him, and that they aren't sleeping in the same room. At some point, he thinks that he sees fog, and it gets a little colder. He remembers what Martin had said earlier, and how the white mist of isolation had billowed off of his skin when he and Jon had finally reentered the Panopticon two years ago after being trapped in the Lonely. There’s the sound of Jon’s door opening, and then Martin’s, and Tim is already awake, and he wants to make sure that both of them are alright, so he gets up, quickly, exits his room slowly. Upon entering Martin’s room, he finds Jon curled against Martin's back in bed, running his long, scarred hands into his hair, murmuring softly. Something in Tim’s chest unfurls. Although the two of them aren't asleep, they don't seem to have noticed him, so he heads back to bed. Even still, he sits at attention, only drifting off when the unnatural chill of the air disperses.

In the morning, Jon is staring at Tim as though trying to discern something (he raises his eyebrows, but Tim just winks), and Tim watches as Martin cooks eggs, and then he sees an eyelash in them and sticks his finger in the pan to get it out. Martin scrunches his nose up and complains about not wanting "finger eggs," and Tim laughs. When he looks back at Jon, the probing look has vanished off of his face, replaced by that tiny, warm smile, eyes crinkling at the corners; when he realizes that he's been spotted, he looks away, but he can't seem to stop grinning.

The hours following are spent properly unpacking the rest of Martin and Jon's boxes, and Tim thinks that it only takes longer than it should have because there are frequents breaks varying from Tim teasing Jon for his exceedingly large array of documentaries, to forcing him to sit down when his leg starts to ache. Even then, he starts to pull random objects out of a box, unable to keep still.

At some point, he pauses, hand wrapped around a small notebook. It’s really familiar.

"I have," he begins and then pauses to clear his throat. "I have some things from—from Sasha."

Tim pauses from where he’s putting miscellaneous plates into the kitchen cabinet. Through his peripheral, he sees Martin freeze as well.

“Do you want to elaborate on that or…?”

“After...after everything, I guess I was able to...Know small things. I started writing them down, and then I talked to Melanie, and she was able to say more than she’d been able to, when she’d started to work at the—at the Institute, so I wrote that down, too. And, I just...had some of her things. I suppose.” Jon is fiddling with the notebook, now, hair hanging in front of his face like a curtain. “The photographs are still the same as when she...wasn’t. But these are the pieces of her that...that made it. I just wanted to let you both know.”

Martin walks back into the living room, and Tim follows. “Can we see?”

“Ah, um.” Jon presses his lips together before handing the small box of miscellaneous tapes to Martin. His hand shakes around the tiny notebook. “I let you listen to one of the tapes a few years back, but obviously there were...more. These are the only tapes with her voice on them, though, and, ah. One of them is from—from Prentiss’s attack. It’s, ah. It’s what actually happened. The. The scream.”

“The scream,” Tim’s fingers twitch minutely, and he looks away, towards the wall. “It was Sasha, then?”

“It was,” Jon tries to set the book on the table, but he’s shaking so badly that he accidentally tosses it. The three of them watch it fall to the ground. 

“Jon?” Martin asks. 

Jon shakes his head stiffly, clenching and unclenching his fists. His breathing is a little choppy, but he’s composed enough to say, “Sorry, ah, I’m just—I need some air” before shooting up and leaving the house with haste. 

Tim lets out a breath that he didn’t know he wasn’t holding, turning to Martin with a reassuring, “I’ll go talk to him.” He waits a few moments before haltingly making his way through the front door after Jon.

The man isn’t hard to find at all, mainly because he isn’t hiding. He’s just leaning against the side of Tim’s house, arms wrapped around himself, head hanging. Tim can’t see his face, but it’s cold enough today to see how quickly he’s breathing, how the white puffs disperse into the air around him.

Tim situates himself next to Jon, staying silent. It doesn’t take long for Jon to press his head against Tim’s shoulder.

“We didn’t even know. I’d thought that—I—” Jon pauses. “It took Melanie yelling at me to realize that something was wrong, that…”

“None of us knew, Jon.”

“No, no, you were right, back then, when we finally tried to, to discuss it.”

“Sasha being dead.”

Jon nods. “I was so...I was so sure about someone close to me being the danger...and...you were right. I got what I wanted, in the end. It won’t bring Sasha back. Nothing will bring her back, but I felt so. Alone. And I’d done it to myself. And I keep thinking that maybe if I had trusted someone, if I had stopped to think of someone other than myself—I mean, would it have been easier to figure out? Would we have collected the dots, sooner?

“Did you know that...that before everything went wrong, both Elia—Jonah and Martin had suggested that I get rid of the table? Knowing what it was holding back, now, it would have ended in the same manner, but I...even still, with the threat that it—that it was to everyone, I didn’t _want_ to get rid of it. I can’t stop thinking that if I had done what I was told for _once,_ she would still be—”

Tim sighs, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall. “Haven’t you been punished enough?”

Jon immediately goes quiet. His nails are digging into the flesh of his arms; Tim wants to slap them away, but he’s sure that Jon doesn’t want to be touched unless it’s on his own terms, right now. After a moment, he responds, “Sometimes I don’t think I have. Not for that. For everything else, I can accept that it was...my own ‘rotten luck,’ as Magnus had put it. But compared to—to everything with Sasha...She’s not alive to forgive me. And I don’t think I’ve forgiven myself.”

“You think she wouldn’t forgive you?”

“I don’t remember, yet.”

Tim doesn’t know what to say to that.

They lapse back into silence. A few teardrops start to roll along Tim’s arm. He just maneuvers the both of them carefully to the ground, turns towards Jon and lets him fall against his chest. Runs his hand through Jon’s long hair until he pushes away to rub his eyes.

“Feel any better?”

Jon takes a deep breath, “Yes, I...I do suppose that crying...helped, some.”

“One thing at a time, boss.”

“Don’t call me boss after I’ve just cried into your chest, Tim.”

Tim gives a hushed laugh before sighing again, pushing Jon’s hair behind his ear. “But seriously, Jon, you’ve had front row seats to what grief does to people. I think that if I can forgive you, Sasha would have, too. It wasn’t your fault, in the first place, even if you can’t accept that, right now. We all...we all miss Sasha, Jon. I don’t know if we would have been able to figure anything out, sooner. Yes, it would have been great if you hadn’t spent months letting paranoia consume you, but...You’ve already atoned for that part of it.”

Jon is fiddling with Tim’s free hand, “You’re right. Of course you are, I just…” He laughs, and it’s humorless. “We’ve been through hell, but we’re getting somewhat of a happy ending, aren’t we? She won’t ever get that.”

“We remember her, though. I think never having known would be worse. We can’t do anything else.”

“I know,” Jon replies, squeezing Tim’s hand three times. Tim kisses his forehead. Squeezes back four.

Somehow, when they return to the warmth of the house, Martin has managed to unpack most of the boxes, leaving only what he’s deemed to be personal. Once everything is finished, Tim and Jon don’t hesitate in kissing him senseless.

_________________________

It only takes about four more nights for Jon to say something about the bed situation.

Of course, since it’s Jon, it’s a little awkward, and he clears his throat at least five times before Martin smothers a laugh and asks Tim if he wants them to share a bed with him. Tim knows exactly why they’re asking, thinks back to the first night and the way Jon had watched him the morning after. He’s honestly grateful that they were the ones to ask; he hadn’t wanted to mention it, concerned about making Martin uncomfortable, but it’d happened every other night, so far, and so it was probably for the best that it got nipped in the bud, early on. Obviously, he agrees, and even though Martin’s feet are freezing, and Jon elbows him a few times when he shifts, Tim goes to sleep feeling warm, and the three of them sleep peacefully through the entire night.

_________________________

They have a housewarming party, once they fully settle into a daily routine. 

Melanie is the one who suggests it, during one of their regular exercise sessions. They aren’t as hostile as they used to be, given that neither of them rely on their animosity as motivation, but it’s still a form of stress relief, and sometimes they do need to let out pent up aggression, especially after everything that they'd been through—progress isn’t linear, and all of that. This is a healthy way of coping, and they haven’t managed any real damage to anyone or anything, so Tim thinks that it’s fine.

Today is a good day, though, and they lie on the padded mat for some time after Melanie manages to tackle him to the ground, catching their breath and dripping with sweat.

“Georgie tells me that Jon and Martin live with you now?” Melanie asks, face turned to the ceiling, scarred eyes closed. “How long has that been a thing?”

“Ah, about a few weeks ago? I just up and asked them to move in, and they agreed, so, you know.”

“And how is it?”

“It’s…” Tim thinks about how long it takes Martin and Tim to get Jon to abandon the schoolwork and come to bed, about helping him find his cane when he manages to lose it, about the way that he’d sometimes curl up on or against one or both of them like a cat, letting them run their hands through his hair or along his arms or back. He thinks about the way that sometimes he doesn’t hear Martin moving until he brushes up against him on accident, the way that he’ll occasionally press into the couch with one of his journals and stay there until someone comes home, how he would have a cup of tea almost religiously, poured into a very endearing cat mug. He thinks about how he and Jon kiss Martin goodbye before they head off to work, at least once on the lips—once, Jon had to tug Tim away because he’d been smooching Martin’s entire face with no intention of stopping. A little hypocritical, knowing that Jon has days where he will kiss Martin goodbye every other minute, but Tim never calls him out on it. “It’s nice.”

“Good, good,” she replies. “Planning on having a party? I make some mean brownies.”

Tim snorts, “Do you?”

“Sure do!” Her face splits into a confident grin; she shoots finger-guns in his general direction. “Just say the word, Stoker, and you’ve got yourself a baker.”

“Maybe just you, Georgie, Basira, and Daisy.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Hey,” he gently punches her shoulder, and she laughs, pushing herself up and gathering her white cane from the wall. He follows, stretching a little. “I have plenty of other friends, you know!”

She just laughs more, and he starts to laugh as well, already texting his boyfriends.

A few days later, all of his closest friends are sitting in his living room, and the house feels cluttered in a good way. Somehow it’s easier to breathe. 

The coffee table sits in the middle of two large red couches and a single leather recliner, covered in an assortment of sweets—brownies and biscuits and an Oreo cheesecake, which is quickly devoured between them. There’s a cheese and fruit board, which Jon picks from instead of making himself a plate of actual food, and a decent assortment of alcoholic beverages. Basira and Georgie choose not to drink, taking on the role of designated driver, but Daisy and Melanie are pushing a beer and a wine cooler, respectively, into Jon and Martin’s hands. Tim is positive that neither of them will drink past a second bottle, so he doesn’t really worry about it much, getting his own peach-mango cooler.

“House looks _real_ nice, guys,” Melanie jokes. Tim and Georgie roll their eyes, and Basira and Daisy snort. “Really, though, I’m glad that you all sorted through your mess and moved in together. Feels like payback, in its own way.”

“An eye for an eye, huh,” Jon mutters, swirling his drink, and Daisy gently bumps their shoulders together. He leans into her slightly, and Tim swears that he can hear her make a small purring noise.

Basira scoffs, “I wish that had been the case.” She presses into Daisy’s other side, and the purring gets a little louder. “But yeah. It is nice that _he_ got what he deserved—thank you for that, Martin—and that we...made it.”

“We really did, huh?” Martin laughs into his drink, a quiet puff of air. The alcohol has made him drowsy—he’s pressed into the corner of the sofa, nursing his wine cooler in a delicate hold. Tim, situated on the arm of the couch, runs his hands through his curly strands. Martin makes a low rumbling sound, leaning back into his fingers.

“A toast, then?” Tim raises an eyebrow, smirking. He lifts his drink, knocks on the glass with his knuckles. “You’re all asking for a toast? Making it through the end of the world?”

Melanie barks out a laugh, spreading herself across Georgie’s lap, head resting on the arm of the chair, “Yes! That’s exactly what this calls for! So if you could all lift your glasses?”

One by one, they all lift their drinks. Tim looks over everyone, this group of people that have been through hell, just like he has. This group of people that has managed to grab onto each other with an iron grip, that almost unified too late but managed to unite, nonetheless.

Tim tilts his bottle, the bitter-sweetness of the moment threatening to choke him. “To everyone who made it. To everyone that didn’t.”

It takes a while for Tim to clean up, once everyone has gone home, and even then, the feeling of life blooming within the walls of the Stoker house is extensive. The house still smells of Melanie’s baked goods, whatever’s left sitting patiently on the dining room table. The recliner has absorbed the smell of Georgie’s perfume, and the sofas have absorbed the smell of incense from Daisy and Basira’s clothes and skin—Jon is curled up where they’d sat, fast asleep. Martin is still situated in the corner of the other couch, and he’s also asleep, if the soft snoring is anything to go by. At some point, Tim gently wakes both of them up, and they stumble into bed, together.

There is no fog lingering in the corners, no overarching frigidity taking its usual place against the floors. Loneliness no longer occupies the cracks and crevices of this house.

No, there is a stack of Jon’s documentaries resting on the television table, some non-fiction mystery books from Basira, some Archers CDs from Daisy—she’d admitted that it was more for her than it was for Jon or anyone else, for when she’d come over to visit, and Jon had laughed with a content, “Quite.” Martin’s poetry, a slowly growing anthology, has found a place in Tim’s previously unused bookshelf, and Georgie had gifted him a set of mugs shaped in the form of various animals (he seems to have immediately latched onto the mug shaped like a chocolate lab).

Sometimes, a pale, yellow door will manifest in a random room of the house, and maybe, in the past, he would have been worried about it, but Tim will occasionally open it. He knows that the creature that lurks in those dark halls is lonely, too, and he won’t rebuff her rare cravings for humanity. Sometimes, she will leave her domain and tease Jon, or keep Martin company. Sometimes, Tim will mention to her that Georgie and Melanie are planning to visit (even though he knows that Helen the Distortion sees the two of them plenty), and when they do, her door will be there, more of an eyesore than usual. They’ll knock, and out will come Helen, and she always looks happier when she’s talking with them, so Tim figures that maybe he can handle the subsequent headache and dizziness.

Danny's door is open, and sometimes Tim goes in there and talks. Sometimes he hears Martin and Jon in the room with him; sometimes he hears the name "Sasha" in the openness of the hall, from one of their voices. Sometimes he'll join them.

At night, Tim wraps his arms around Jon and rests his chin upon his head, and Martin curls up at his back and kisses the crown of Tim’s own head softly. 

And Tim has never felt more at home than at this moment.

**Author's Note:**

> I just want them...to be happy...I miss Tim so much...
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope that you enjoyed it...If you want to hang or something, here's my [twitter,](https://twitter.com/Dragon_Zena) and here's my [tumblr](dragon-zena.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Comments are highly appreciated! Thank you, again!


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